


Compromise

by fluffybookfaerie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:04:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybookfaerie/pseuds/fluffybookfaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Sam had settled down with Amelia? What would Dean's life be like?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compromise

What Sam had was right for Sam, and what Dean had was right for Dean. When he thought about it like that, it was so easy. Sam wanted out of the life, so he got to have the house in the suburbs with Amelia. Dean knew that he couldn’t ever have that. He tried that once, with Lisa and Ben, and even before that ended the way it had, he had known that wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing. Dean could never rest easy knowing that there were people out there who needed a hunter to save them. His home was the impala, with Cas.

But there were times, like now, when little things like the sight of the four foot tall basketball hoop struck him as he pulled into Sam’s driveway, making him feel the weight of just how much he was missing. In another life, he and Cas could be the ones teaching their child how to play basketball. And then the thought of Cas—learning how to play basketball, squinting at the ball in that pensive way of his, asking him, completely serious, why they have to bounce the ball as they move when it’s so much easier to just carry it—that thought put a smile on Dean’s face when he rang the doorbell.

Dean always tried not to stay for too long, or visit too often. Just every once in a while, when Cas was away on heaven business, and he happened to be passing through the area. It was great seeing Sammy so happy, and yeah, they always tried to make him feel welcome, but it was always a little weird, to be in a place that belonged to Sam but not him. Almost everything they’d had for most of their lives was shared between the two of them. And even if she was too sweet to say it, he knew Amelia felt like his relationship with Sam intruded on hers. But then there was that moment, when he walked into the door and little Robbie ran up to him with a huge smile on his face, and Dean got to pick him up and pretend for just one moment that this was all his.

***

Dean knew he was the last one awake as he paced around the guest room. Everyone went to bed so early in the suburbs. He was about to pray to Cas like he always did on nights when they were separated, when he heard whimpering coming through the wall from the next room—Robbie’s room. He didn’t even hesitate before he was out the door, in the hall, knocking on his nephew’s door.

“Everything okay in there, buddy?” he called softly.

“Uncle Dean?” sniffled Robbie.

Dean pushed open the door and stuck his head in. “What’s up?”

Robbie was sitting upright in his bed, crying silently into a well-loved teddy bear. “I think there’s a—a vampire in my closet,” he confessed to Dean, the words slightly muffled by the stuffed animal.

Dean tensed and scanned the list of accessible weapons—dead man’s blood in the trunk of the impala, Ruby’s knife under his pillow in the guest room—before he thought to consider why the hell a vampire would be hiding in the closet of Sam Winchester’s son. He relaxed and tiptoed into the room.

“I don’t think there are any monsters in here,” he told Robbie, flinging open his closet door to reveal, as he thought, just a pile of shoes and some clothes on a rack. “See?”  
Robbie shook his head. “Now it’s just hiding!”

Dean sighed and settled down in the rocking chair next to Robbie’s bed. He remembered when Sammy used to have nightmares at this age. Their dad was always passed out drunk or gone on a hunting trip, so it was up to Dean to comfort him. Or just stay awake, listening, until the screaming stopped.

“Listen,” he told Robbie. “I get it. Vampires are scary.”

Robbie shot him a disbelieving look. “Nothing scares you,” he accused, still mumbling into the teddy bear. “You and my dad can beat up anything.”

Dean suddenly had an idea. “Yeah,” he agreed. “But that’s only because we know how.”

He wasn’t exactly going to teach the kid how to handle a knife, but no Winchester was going to feel helpless under his watch.

“Vampires are scared of sunlight, right?” he asked Robbie. Robbie nodded. “Well, your lamp,” he said as he looked at the ceiling, “happens to be a UV light. Which means it can burn the vamps too. So all you need to do when you’re scared—“ he flicked the light switch, “is turn it on.”

Robbie’s eyes grew wide, and finally, the teddy bear dropped to his lap.

“Are you ready to go back to sleep?” Dean asked him.

Robbie settled back against his pillows. “Can you tell me a story first?”

Dean tucked the blankets in around his nephew. "Your dad ever tell you about my old friend Benny?"

Robbie shook his head.

"Well. Once upon a time, your Uncle Cas and I were trapped on opposite ends of a big, scary forest, and the only person who could give me a way out was this mysterious guy named Benny. So I decided to trust him..."

***

He always hated leaving Sam and his family, and it never got much easier. All he could really do was turn up the volume of the Kansas song that was playing on his radio, and get his mind on the next case. But the song was interrupted by the flutter of wings in the passenger seat.

“Hello, Dean,” came a familiar low voice from beside him. Dean’s face split into a wide grin, and he looked around for the nearest place to pull over. Once the car was parked, he turned and pulled his lover into a rough embrace.

“Hey, baby,” he whispered into Cas’s ear. But then Cas pulled away.

Dean cocked his head. “What’s the matter, Cas?” He noticed that one of the angel’s hands was hiding something behind his back.

“Dean,” began Cas hesitantly. “I—sensed that you were upset. And I know there are no dogs allowed in the impala, but I thought this might make you happy.” And then he brought his hand around to show Dean that he was holding a kitten by the scruff of the neck.

“Cas…” was all Dean could say, and his voice broke on even the one word. He couldn’t finish, because the lump in his throat was too big, and anyway, what could he possibly say, but thank you, over and over again, for knowing, just like he always did, what Dean needed, even better than Dean knew himself. Because they couldn’t have kids without Dean constantly living with the fear that he’d become just like his dad. And maybe he would never have a child of his own to comfort and protect, but he had Robbie, whenever he had time to go visit Sam, and he had Cas. And maybe they weren’t living the white picket fence life, but there were other kinds of family. And really, who needed suburbia when you had an angel?


End file.
